6 August 2025

The down side of a neighborhood is any time I step out the door I’m likely to run into someone. At the end of the day my dog is wining to go for a walk, two days ago I crossed paths with the owners of two poodles. The humans were nice though the poodles were barking a lot. Last night I was still on my lawn when the neighbor across the street started talking to me, then I started walking the dog and ran into the neighbor’s husband for a chat. They’re all good people, but at that time of day I basically just got off work and want to relax. The girls are sleeping for the night, prep work for tomorrow is done, all the animals fed, I’m looking for some quiet time. Having kids means I’ll be spending the next 18 years looking for quiet time since yesterday we also took the girls to the pediatrician and today we’re going to the daycare to drop off school supplies for the year. The system they have at daycare for kid drop off and pick up is the parent stays in the car and the teacher loads the kid, that will keep conversation to a minimum though I know they’ll be plenty of chatter as time goes on. When we first moved here, we were the talk of the grocery store, someone said that. My amazing girls will increase that talk and I’m usually the only dad around in child care situations. Image of wood toys my princess painted.

5 August 2025

Last night was a little sweaty, at some point the AC went out. Living in old houses up until now has been nice because if this happens we can open up the windows and they’re designed for air flow. Our current house is air tight which helps the HVAC system, but now feels like I can’t breath. We’re taking the girls to the doctor today, they both have appointments, hopefully no one is getting any shots as that would likely make them fussy for the next couple days. Our trash can is full and tomorrow is trash day, so it’s building up inside the house. All of these things are little annoyances, nothing about my life is broken still my natural inclination is that I’m not doing enough and I’m left wondering how am I supposed to do more when I’ve got these distractions. Here’s where I’m thankful for the distractions because it’s not right that I always feel a need to improve, I have a very good life and should enjoy it. What becomes of me then? Dust, it’s what becomes regardless of any great achievement. When I listen to the Bible is seems in the old testament there are a lot of rules people must follow to stay holy, in the new testament my understanding is God made a new covenant(agreement) with mankind that faith in Jesus is all we can do. Rather than feeling like I don’t measure up, I work on gratitude for being relieved of the burden of measurement. Walk with a clear mind and I will be guided along the path.

4 August 2025

Good morning, back to the grind. This is the last week before daycare starts for the elder princess, that’s when I view my life in the new house as starting, right now could still be considered unpacking from the move. We’ve also go our New Orleans trip this weekend, so I’ll probably be missing a couple days of blogging. Currently my main concern is getting ready for the trip including packing clothes, putting the hard shell storage on the van, and we’ve got a new cooler that I still need to unbox and learn the basics of. The elder princess and I have been working on some painting for gifts to friends. I’ll have to take pictures of the paintings, they’re simple enough and come from a Curious George book where George is learning the alpha bet. There is a picture for each letter big and small that uses the letter in the picture of an object that starts with that letter. The princess is still very interested in painting and does it a couple times a day, mostly blobs but at age three shes getting practice for holding a pencil while learning letters. Practice of the word cat continues and I made a picture of that for her to see. I’m unsure if I will exercise this week as it could give or takeaway energy from this coming weekend. This past weekend felt like I was on E(empty), so I might need the rest.

1 August 2025

When I unpackaged the armor, I didn’t immediately wipe of the oil and it looks like there was some staining. The stains aren’t a big deal as part of the experience is to consider how should armor look, is it similar to a big clean truck that never gets used for its purpose or has it been through the mud? Looking run down isn’t my intention, in a way it’s the opposite since these props like crowns and armor give the idea of royalty. Problems benefit me by giving room to grow, it’s another telling to the circle of life. We’re born incomplete and need to grow into our adult bodies, as problems are solve we evolve into a new state, once there we can see problems we were unaware of before entering the space. Once the new problems are dealt with, we’ll be in a new situation that has it’s own challenges. Don’t want to manage mischief? Like rust, time will take it’s course regardless. There will always be work to do and only one man is perfect. We’ll be ok, there are problems bigger than mere mortals and God’s gift to us is that we don’t need to worry about them.

31 July 2025

Yesterday was good, I got some unexpected birthday presents with the arrival of two packages. The first was some tshirts my queen had made for our New Orleans trip and the second package was some armor I ordered for my crusader costume. The steel armor was coated in oil and will need to be maintained to prevent rust. Currently I have to wipe off the excess oil so the armor can be handled. All this made me think of a rap line, “What’s puppy love to a marriage?” What I wondered about the line was why isn’t the daily grind romantic? The idea of puppy love or a new thing has a honeymoon phase and the new thing is more exciting than long standing structures. For one, the regular occurrence becomes the norm and we stop noticing it, humans are really good at normalizing extreme behaviors in many different directions, it’s a little scary. Additionally the longest relationship would be the rarest situation since only one couple will reach that point. Similarly 50% of relationships will be below average, that’s statistics. Humans need to have two systems for reward, for the short and long term. Short term pleasure to get us excited into coming back, but in the long term we can’t have a big jolt of excitement since over 50 years that would get normalized and no longer be effective. Here’s where I turn to the soul, or the mind, I say “in the beginning was the word”, a place for a person to turn inward; less pleasure and more satisfaction. Describing what I mean by satisfaction is difficult, perhaps I can explore it again sometime, for now it’s a new thought brought by my original question.

30 July 2025

Happy birthday to me. Thank you. There won’t be much celebrating today though we’ll be going to New Orleans in a couple weeks to celebrate and I plan to wear the king costume from my podcast. An event worth celebrating this morning was my elder princess spelling the word “mat”. For the last couple of days I’ve put more effort into learning cat, hat, and mat. She memorizes so much that I know she can learn to spell those. She’s also been asking to paint day and night, at first I would oblige her to paint once and clean up when she’s finished. Since she’s continued to ask I thought it’s an opportunity for her to paint more. There’s also a lot of letter writing because a cat face is easy to draw. The other accomplishment was exercising two days in a row, it may have been over a year since I’ve done that. No exercise today as I rest and then tomorrow plan on lifting some weights. Every year on my birthday I write a letter to be read at next year’s birthday. Last year’s letter we had moved into a new house and were expecting to have a new baby. With us having to uproot again it seems like a lot of this year’s letter will be similar. I’m very happy how everything worked out.

29 July 2025

Yesterday’s workout was completed successfully, now I only have to continue doing that everyday for two years and I’ll be set. That’s a joke of course, the current course of action is to do my best. Tonight will be another opportunity to try, the most unknown part is how well the girls go down for bed. If there is a scream fest, listening to that drains a lot of energy and it’s hard to get started. Luckily the bike has a low barrier for entry, I’ve discussed before that making a new happen depends on making it easy to get into the activity, like having my piano in a high traffic area. Ideally I can hop on the bike and get started, there is some set up like putting on shoes, getting water, and setting up a fan; it’s hot in the garage. The heat gives a sauna benefit when exercises, the heat was less desirable for playing music. Currently while riding the bike I scroll on my phone though I’m thinking about how I can improve that. Listening to the Bible would be good except currently I’m desiring visual stimulation too. In time desires will change, same for diet. Tomorrow is my birthday, it’s easy to remember since Wednesday is trash day, hopefully I’ll remember to take the trash to the curb tonight. My last two houses had massive driveways and one going down hill, so dealing with the trash used to be a physical feat, now we’re back to a normal driveway and I’m happy with this normal life though I may be far from it.

28 July 2025

A new week, a new day, a new me? Not really, though I’m a little refreshed. Saturday morning the little princess had very interrupted sleep. Over the weekend I decided to move my piano and guitar out of the garage. The garage is my man cave area where all my hobbies go, except it’s very hot in there. With the heat I don’t go out there often enough to practice. When I practiced the most, the piano was in the middle of high traffic area, I would pass by frequently and sit down for a minute to play. Those minutes add up over time. Hopefully this new spot works and someday I’ll improve the insulation in the garage. During the winter it might be a comfortable temperature. In the mean time I’ll face the heat tonight to exercise, my plan is to increase time of cardio and leave weight lifting out for now. Ideally I’ll lift weights once a week and if I’m doing more cardio I don’t need to do both in the same work out. That’s about all I can think of now as the little princess is making noise, it’s almost time for her nap, but when she speaks my whole brain shifts attention to her. There’s always more tomorrow.

25 July 2025

Today is Friday which means I’ve written everyday of the work week and I’ll need to take the weekend off. Breaks are required to get some life experience, if I write everyday then I’m always thinking about what I might write about next. Yesterday I mentioned the importance of time off and it extends to mental activities. At first it seems like I could break everything down into mental and physical activities, maybe so, but there is depth I think is worth uncovering. Other activities that came to mind were reading and piano. Reading seems all mental, physically I’m sitting still, my will get tired though. Piano may seem physical, I’m uncertain what the physicality is since I won’t be out of breath from piano, perhaps the muscles used are too small and unfit compared to my large muscles. There is also mental activity in piano, I’ve said music is math in motion. The five fingers on each hand are numbered left to right, currently I’m working on a pattern with the right hand that goes 1,2,5,4,3,2,3,4,1. Juggling those numbers and the slightly different pattern for the other hand takes mental rehearsing before sitting at the piano. All that is even before considering Keys which are letters that are used like numbers; C,D,E,F,G,A,B. I’m not proficient enough to start explaining the relationships between Keys. With the same notes on a piano for hundreds of years we’re still making new music.

24 July 2025

The day after a workout is always rough and tomorrow will likely be worse. Muscle soreness always seems to be at it’s worst two to three days after. It’s easy to blame age for how tired I feel now, but I know the reality is I’m out of shape. There are people playing in the NFL and world champions older than me, so my life decisions have an effect. Exercising everyday would leave me sore all the time and it would become normal to the point that I’m never sore. Exercising everyday may be possible with cardio, but isn’t realistic for heavy weight lifting, even in my prime three days straight of lifting would knock me out for a couple days. My education has shown me that rest is just as important as activity, muscle builds when you rest as they say. And again diet is hugely important, in the past I’ve had a good example of something like two cookies is over 100 calories and it would take a half hour of cardio to burn the same amount. The point being it’s actually easier to eat right than to work off excess energy. That’s it for today, going back to resting and in time recovery will get better.